At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the cusp of what historians have since called ‘the modern era’, Monteverdi posed the perennial question of every artist: how do my creations relate to those of past masters?

How does innovation relate to imitation?

Such questions will spark the imagination of our highly distinguished panel of speakers, including theologian Giles Waller, composer and musicologist Alexander Goehr, philosopher Simone Kotva and violinist Hugo Ticciati.